Tag Archives: eyes

One of the reasons I am very skeptical of LASIK surgery is because of the number of LASIK surgeons who wear glasses.

If we don’t have our sense of sight, we literally can’t see. Is LASIK surgery “riskier” for LASIK surgeons than it is for regular people? Isn’t one’s sense of sight something precious for every human being?

“A LASIK surgery expert and a Professor of Ophthalmology at the Cullen Eye Institute of the Baylor College of Medicine.”

Question: If LASIK is a great solution, why are LASIK surgeons still wearing glasses?!?!?

LASIK Complications is a comprehensive website on the risks and long-term issues of LASIK surgery gone wrong.

If you’re thinking of going for LASIK surgery, don’t read up about the risks after you’ve done the surgery when it’s too late. It’s an irreversible procedure and eyesight deteriorating after the surgery is not an uncommon occurrence. Do you really want to gamble with your eyesight and cut your corneas for what is “marketed” as a quick fix “solution”?

Some LASIK surgeons recommend not to do both eyes at once because of “the risks” involved. LASIK surgeons don’t consider dry eyes and night vision problems as “complications,” even though they may be debilitating and permanent. So a blind eye or eye that doesn’t function as well is considered “too bad” because it’s “a risk” you’re supposed to take? I’ll stick to the Bates Method, thanks.

These Top 10 Reasons as to why a person should not have LASIK surgery done should be more than enough to steer anyone away from this option.

LASIK permanently weakens the cornea — the thinner, weaker post-LASIK cornea is more susceptible to progressing to a condition known as keratectasia and corneal failure, requiring corneal transplant later on (ugh!).

Safer alternatives to LASIK exist. There is no sound medical reason to risk vision loss from unnecessary surgery.

I’ve asked that question to myself many times (LOL) throughout this natural vision improvement program.

The rate of progress varies for each person. I’ve been wearing glasses for almost 20 years, so that is literally two decades of “bad eyesight habits” to undo.

However I think there are certain things I could do to speed up my progress, since it’s right now at around -4.50 (which is a lot better than my original -7.25 prescription). Even though the improvement has taken several years, at least there is a real and lasting improvement without resorting to unhealthy or risky options such as contact lenses or LASIK surgery.

I read a blog post earlier today from iblindness.org — a lot of the things David said in his article are things that have worked for me too. So I will make a bit more of a conscious effort to implement these good eyesight habits from now on to relax/strengthen my eye muscles.

You need to remain conscious of what you’re looking at with your center of vision, meaning you can’t “space out” and think of something else. If you aren’t using your center of vision, you aren’t really looking at anything at all.

2. REGISTER THE DETAILS

It doesn’t much matter whether the next detail is far away or close to the first one. There is no faking this process — you have to be mentally engaged by thinking about what you’re looking at. Moving your central vision in the right way will feel too slow at first, but you will adapt and find you are processing details more quickly.

3. NARROW AND SPEED UP

The couple seconds you spend on each spot can be reduced as you narrow your area of clearest vision. The smaller the spot you identify as your central vision, the easier it is to look at.

4. RELAX

It’s important to stay as relaxed as possible so that you’re teaching yourself that this process is easy and something you can keep doing all day, every day as part of your normal perception.

The vision improvement process is very mental. The way to prevent your mind from running amok with random thoughts is to focus on something outside the words running in your head. Your breath is an extremely handy tool. Practice concentrating on the sound, feeling and rhythm of your breath, and remind yourself to notice it frequently as you practice the vision improvement process. It will keep you calm and focused.

5. BE INTERESTED

Genuine interest in what you’re looking at is a huge part of seeing and perceiving. Be mentally attentive to what you’re seeing. That’s one reason seeing through glasses doesn’t help your visual functioning – you might see more details through glasses, but you aren’t involved enough in the “looking” process that is just as important.

Like this:

I quote from these two sources as to why a child should never be made to wear glasses or contact lenses:

“While it is true that eyeglasses bring some people improved vision and relief from pain and discomfort, they always do more or less harm, and at their best they never improve your vision to normal. After you begin to wear glasses, in most cases, the correction has to be steadily increased in order to maintain the degree of visual acuity secured by the aid of the first pair. Your vision wearing glasses progressively decreases with time. It really is tragic when children are condemned to a lifetime of having to wear glasses because of all age groups they are the ones that best respond to natural eye improvement strategies.”
~ Dr. Mercola’s Vision Program (based on Bates Method)

“To put on glasses when one has developed a strain may give temporary relief, however, if incorrect habits of using the eyes are not overcome, the wearer returns to the eye specialist for an increase in the lens.”

Like this:

Last night I managed to do a pencil drawing without wearing my glasses.

I think I was unaware of the fact until the drawing was halfway done (I had to bend a bit closer towards the table, but without much strain).

I can read without glasses too (THANK GOD)…now I’m going to aim 100% to be able to work at a computer without glasses. I’m not wearing glasses now while typing this though my close-range vision with a computer screen is not super sharp yet…I will keep going until I get that done, lol :)

It’s taken me a LONNNNNG while (due to various factors/stressors, including “forgetting” about good eye habits), though I tried on my -5.00 glasses today and I’m finally able to see clearly into the distance with them.

My next goal is to get down to -4.00 glasses (after which, yes, I’m going to go for “perfect vision”). In 2009 I did keep to a rather severe schedule where I worked on the computer for a very limited amount of time daily. I didn’t wear glasses for the rest of the day with that schedule. My eyesight did improve within a relatively short time frame (then I experienced a couple of stressful events and bam, there went my vision improvement).

I’ll do my best to stay committed to getting it down to -4.00 this time (that was my first “major goal” from original prescription of -7.25, followed by the next “major goal” to get it down to perfect vision).

The thing I realised about four years ago is that glasses don’t really solve the problem of looking at different depths and distances. Your eyes are forced to adjust to using the maximum strength lens at all distances.That’s why I started wearing weaker glasses most of the day. Besides being more comfortable, I thought it might slow down the rate of deterioration But, thinking about it, if eyes can adjust by getting worse, why not adjust by getting better?

I noticed this when I was around 16 years old too — that the higher-powered glasses weren’t exactly making my eyesight better (in fact, they were making my eyesight worse).

As my eyes became used to the higher-powered prescription for far distance, the higher-powered lenses were too strong for close range. I didn’t have weaker lenses at the time for close range work (and I couldn’t see further than a couple of inches in front of my face without glasses). So it just got steadily worse until mid-2008 when I sought a way to improve my (deteriorating) eyesight by natural means.

— Close to -4.00 (both eyes); using -2.00 for computer; no glasses for reading / writing, Sept 2012

* * *

LONGER VERSION:

I drastically cut down my computer usage over the past few days (and am not doing close-range work at “a hundred percent” either, until I’m able to do so without straining my eyes).

From these few days, I realise that I hardly blinked or moved my eyes (even small movements) whenever I was using the computer. I tend to have this habit while watching TV too (and I don’t watch *that* much television).

When I was sixteen (my prescription was around -5.75 or -6.00 then, maybe), I noticed that my eyes felt more relaxed whenever I took off my glasses. It was kind of impossible to go without glasses though (that was my O-Levels year as a student in Singapore). Now that I have the chance to “relearn good eyesight habits,” I’m doing all that I can to ensure my progress continues to go smoothly :)

My -4.00 powered lenses are very strong now for close-range work (it’s almost sharp when I’m outdoors and there’s bright sun / indoors it gets a bit fuzzy with further distances). My eyesight has always been sharper in the sunlight (noticed this from long time ago). I hope to improve my “night vision” too as I continue re-integrating the good eyesight habits into daily life/activities until they become subconscious.

Right now I blink more and my eyes / head moves a little bit more when I’m using the computer. The three “principles” of good eyesight habits are (1) movement, (2) centralisation (instead of diffusing and “trying to see everything at once,” which strains the eyes, and (3) mental relaxation (the most important and I think the hardest principle to establish, depending on one’s daily lifestyle).

Looking back from my first pair of glasses at 7.5 years old (and -0.75 prescription), all the way till around 19 or 20 years old (with my highest prescription of around -7.25), I suppose my internal levels of “stress” correlates with the higher-powered lenses (stronger prescription – more stressed = more strain = going back to the optician for another new pair of glasses). I’ve not visited an optician since 2006 (I got all my lower prescription glasses from www.zenni.com). I have always been an ambitious person, so I intend for my next trip to the optician to be a visit where I can prove to myself that I no longer need to rely on glasses to see things.

I always hated going for those eye tests, by the way. I used to really dread it and would panic whenever I needed to get it done annually when I was a student.

I grew up in Singapore and I remember crying all the way home when I was fitted with my first pair of glasses. I was just really distressed about it at 7.5 years old and didn’t wear them for about a year, after which the prescription went up to something like -1.50 and I had to wear them permanently from then on.

The opticians over there tend to deliberately make your eyesight worse (good for business), which is why I mostly loathe opticians nowadays (lol). In 2008 I noticed my eyesight beginning to deteriorate again, and I was kinda desperate not to get them higher than -7.25, which is how I found the Relearning to See book that I mentioned in the first post here.

It is heartening to know that the author of that book had an original prescription of -8.00 (oh my!). In one of the chapters, I read that he broke out in a skin rash on the left side of his body as he was improving his eyesight naturally (part of the healing crisis associated with homeopathy / the ‘natural method’ of doing things so that the body heals itself naturally).

I had a weird skin rash in the past week, and I took a few pictures.

— This first pic is the rash when it was very itchy (a few days ago / night time).

— This second picture was taken today (the spots are smaller and darker / beginning to calm down and fade away, I think).

I’ve been having vision-oriented dreams too (and occasional dreams where I don’t wear my glasses, or panic when I leave my glasses somewhere behind in the dream, lol).

Able to use -2.00 glasses for computer work, and no glasses for reading / close-range writing (for short amounts of time).

Will keep up the progress. I don’t mind glasses at all as an accessory, but I hate having to rely on them so heavily for daily work and to just bloody hell SEE properly.

The first time I heard about the Bates Method was when I was around 16 years old. My interest/curiosity was piqued. If other people could find success with it, perhaps I could too.

I’m more determined to one day have perfect vision without glasses (like when I was a very young kid), than to lose to the opticians who would have me (and people like me, in terms of eyesight) enslaved to their glasses / contact lenses all in the name of business. I know not *all* opticians are this way (some do support natural eyesight methods/classes), but the vast majority of opticians I personally experienced fall into the “$$$ first” category.

Relearning and maintaining good eyesight habits is far more important and sensible to me than being enslaved to the bad habits of unscrupulous opticians.

P.S. During my last two visits to an optician, some astigmatism thing was added to my lenses. I removed those immediately when I ordered my lower powered glasses online, and have had no problems with “astigmatism” since (I never believed I had that problem).